Nightmare
by Quirel
Summary: The Covenant are xenocidal fanatics, bent on our extermination. There is no stopping their onslaught, no evading their reach, and they will not halt until Mankind is exterminated. Our mistake was assuming that they are the worst that is out there...
1. Dig hard, dig deep

**Gentlemen, I appreciate the fact that UN law requires all Level Five Biohazard labs to be constructed on non-populated planets for safety and privacy. But I also believe that more hospitable locations could have been found, and the staff at the newly dedicated Gerald Siemann Research Laboratory would appreciate it if this fact was taken into account for future installations.**

**Furthermore, we have compiled a list of organisms that we believe to be unsuitable for study at this or any other laboratory. What few scraps of knowledge we can glean from their study is far outweighed by the threat their continued existence poses. As a level five biohazard, they are capable of actively breaking quarantine, and many gestate too fast to be countered with traditional treatments. We, as scientists, propose the eradication of all the nominated specimens, and the sterilization of the habitats where they were collected.**

**They are, by definition, too dangerous to be allowed to survive.**

**Professor Addam Y. Khyrznhy, Administrative Epidemologist, ONI subsection [Classified]**

**

* * *

0843 hours, 3rd May, 2533 (Military Calendar)**

**Solar System ID# MWG-OA/M-9483, Planet ArakKER-003**

**Southern Hemisphere, Spinal Ridge, Bauxite Base**

"Good afternoon, Professor Brewster. How is the coffee?"

The reply was bitter, coming from a man who had not shaved, and whose turn in the shower room would not come until tomorrow. "Same as always, Durin; too damn weak."

"My apologies, Professor." This meant that the 'dumb' AI was sorry that the coffee had to be weak. The team, due to budget cuts, had only been supplied with enough coffee to keep ten people going for four years. But there were eighteen people on this planet, and they would be here for up to five years. It was a decision between weak coffee and no coffee for the last two years. The first option was deplorable, but the second one was unthinkable.

It wouldn't be so bad, Brewster mused, if Doctor Hitachi didn't make a habit of getting up at four in the morning and drinking the first cup before the whole batch was done brewing, cutting the heart out of the coffee. Brewster had once ordered Durin to prevent Hitachi from doing this, only to be met with "I have neither the authority nor the capacity to do so."

He poured the cup through a membrane filter (It tasted better once half of the water was out of it) and got down to business, catching up with the news in the morning.

"What's the weather forecast?"

"Unchanged." Durin answered.

"Temperature?"

"Thirty five degrees in the shade."

"Worm activity?"

"Minimal."

"Seismic activity?"

"Minimal."

"Correspondences?"

"Junk mail. Are you interested in a cheap supply of Viagra?"

Brewster grimaced. "You know the answer to that. Trash it and call up a map of the crater."

Durin, an AI and not a mind reader, called up aerial maps of several craters in the area, including the caldera in which Bauxite Base was located. Detailed seismic and topographical maps filled Brewster's computer screen, with options for other types of imagery.

Brewster selected a crater five klicks from the caldera. Little pins, dots, and markers showed it to be studded with every type of sensor the United Nations Geological Survey team had available, including Geiger counters, scintillation meters and mole-drones. He stared at the image, the sole reason they were here. Either it was the planet's mother lode of fissile materials, or it was the biggest radon leak in the books.

This was the one reason Brewster, or any of the other UNGS scientists had a job. With a war of extermination against a theoretically undefeatable and definitely fanatical race of aliens being fought and lost, nobody was remotely interested in long-term terraforming projects, or geological surveying for potential future settlements. On the other hand, the UNSC had put out an urgent call for raw materials. Sources that had been discovered decades ago and left for later (So as not to depress the market) were now top priority. Uranium and cesium were now worth their weight in palladium, which was also in high demand. The faster these materials could be sucked out of a planet's crust (Environment and environmentalists be damned) the faster new shipyards and factories could be built, which meant that more ships and guns could get sent to the front lines.

Fourteen years ago, Brewster had graduated with his PhD in Astrogeology, eager to take part in the terraforming of the next Harvest or Arcade. His dreams had been shredded and incinerated before him by UNSC General Order #129682, Section Nine. Now he and the rest of the UNGS scientists everywhere were little better than prospectors with college degrees.

His chatter buzzed, hard. Brewster picked an earpiece off the desk and clipped it on his ear. Darn, he hated it when people interrupted.

"Hello?" he snapped.

"Professor, I have been saying your name for the past two minutes," Durin said at the other end of the connection. "You have not responded."

Brewster shut the chatter off and glared at the vidcam clipped to his computer screen. "Sorry, Durin, I was busy thinking."

"Anything you can publish?"

"Not under my own name."

Durin barely missed a beat. He highlighted an area of the crater, where a cluster of drones were. "Then think about this: the Go-PHR drones have been digging for the past twenty-seven hours, and have not encountered target concentrations of technetium."

The professor blinked in surprise. Technetium was a product of uranium decay, but was short-lived and almost non-existent in a planet's crust. As a general rule of thumb, radon and technetium levels should rise exponentially as you near uranium ore.

The radiation levels checked out. The right isotopes were present to prove uranium decay. The crater in which they were digging was big enough to indicate a deep-lithosphere volcanic vent, usually a good source of uranium on a planet with a core like ArakKER. But where the Hell was the lode? Was this the geological equivalent to Oak Island?

Brewster leaned forward in his chair, his stubbled face lit only by the glow from the computer screen. His cubicle was dark, the way he liked it in the morning or the night. He could function in the semi-light, but he could also forget that he was in a cubicle.

Brewster contemplated using the shotgun approach. Like a doctor ordering a battery of tests in the hope that one would come back positive and save him from working his way through the patient's symptoms, Brewster could initiate a myriad of new surveys and probes. But that didn't change the fact that this patient might be a hypochondriac; that they might be digging in the wrong place.

He glanced at the crater again. Every few days, raging sandstorms would blast through the volcanic mountain ranges on this planet. Great peaks were reshaped unrecognizably in the span of five years. Every valley, every fissure, and every crater was filled with sand as fast as the dynamic tectonic action formed them. This meant that the uranium lode had probably been sandblasted and covered in a dozen meters of course, irritating sand. Traces of uranium would have been scattered throughout the crater, buggering up the readings and predictions. The solution was, of course, to get an exact image of the crater and work from there.

"Durin, fire up the Sonar and GPR equipment. We're going to survey that crater again."

"I'm sorry, sir, but that won't be possible. Doctor Kelly is using that equipment at the moment, and will not return for several hours."

* * *

A hundred years ago, when the UNGS was formed, some deskbound astronomer had drawn up the categorization system for naming newly discovered planets, prior to terraforming and final naming. Whoever it had been, he or she had been a fan of Frank Herbert. Volcanic-desert planets with large arid deserts and an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere had the callsign "Arak". Further conditions, including a detectable hydrosphere, would add a KIS suffix.

Dr. Laura Kelly was a devotee of the Dune series; it was her Bible. In spite of her initial high hopes, this planet only earned a KER suffix, but it was as close as any planet could get. Perhaps they could eventually terraform it closer…

She pulled a seismic sensor, about the size of a microwave-oven, out of the bed of the Sandhog and lugged it to a spot fifteen meters away.

Laura was a xenoecologist, not a geologist. On a prospecting trip like this, there was no biology to study, no terraforming to plan. To stay employed, she was now fixing equipment and taking rock samples. Every time she heard the geologists whine about 'prospecting', she wanted to break their necks and leave them for the sandworms. At least they still had their precious rocks to study. If she wanted to pursue her life's work, she had to do it on her own time.

With the sensors in place, she climbed into the Sandhog, buckled herself in, and drove off to a safe location. She clamped her hands over her ears and then pressed a button on the dash with her elbow.

A ring of seismic sensors analyzed their relative position with radio bursts, and then an explosive charge detonated. Shock waves traveled through the ground and reflected up, and the sensor ring recorded how the shock waves reverberated throughout the ravine.

A 3-D image of the ravine was generated on Laura's PDA. On each side of the ravine were steep basalt cliffs, which came together to form a V deep beneath the sand. As wide and deep as the ravine seemed to be, it was two-thirds full of sand, and there was clearly room for the Sandworms to venture into the citadel.

The Sandworms. While such organisms were not unique in the tallies of the alien organisms encountered by the UNSC, they were the closest to the beasts imagined by Frank Herbert. They grew from several meters to several hundred meters long, and could consume anything with their powerful trivalve jaws. Indeed, after one specimen had swallowed an entire Sandhog, the UNGS team had moved their bases to the volcanic mountain ridges which bordered great oceans of sand.

Except for Bauxite base. (Not Bravo or Biome base, arrogant geologists) It was on the sand, in the middle of the Caldera.

The Caldera looked like a bulls-eye from above, a huge volcanic crater (dormant) ringed by huge cliffs of volcanic rock. At the very center was the Citadel, a three-kilometer wide cap of basalt on a smaller volcanic vent. The ground beneath the Citadel had bulged, dividing the basalt with a spiderweb of ravines. Later, the lava had leaked out from the Citadel, forming wide fans of lava tubes deep beneath the sand.

Where the deserts were vast oceans on the surface of ArakKER, the volcanic mountain ranges were continents, and the sand-filled caldera was a large inland lake, separated from the nearby ocean by a handful of mountains, comparable to a sand bar. It was large, large enough to harbor and sustain a healthy Sandworm population, but not large enough to let them reach the gigantic proportions seen deep in the interior of the deserts. This made it safe for the UNGS firebase to be parked out on the sand, and it also made it safe for her to do her own studies on the Sandworms… on her own time, of course.

The radio in the dashboard buzzed, and Laura pressed the speaker button. She sighed inwardly, knowing the raging argument that was about to kick off.

"You took the Sandhog." Brewster's voice hissed. A calm accusation, not a question. But didn't a lot of storms start out over calm seas?

"I dunno. You dialed the Sandhog's phone, and I happen to be the one who answers. Why do you think that is?"

"Return to base, ASAP. We need to use it."

Laura had to return to base anyways, but this had ceased to be about the Sandhog. This was now a power struggle, the ages-old war between the geologists and the biologists employed by the UNGS, and the more recent power plays and petty bickering over the scarce resources allotted to them.

If she returned immediately, Brewster would win, and his administrative demands would only get harsher. If she had the guts to run tests for another fifteen minutes, she would come out on top. If she managed to delay another ten minutes on top of that while swapping out a spare tire on the Sandhog, it would be a victory for UNGS ecologists everywhere.

If she told him to take those orders and shove up his terminally puckered-

"The sensors are still running." She said. "I'll pack up when they're done." The radio was shut off before Brewster could object.

* * *

Professor Brewster leaned back in his chair and dropped the chatter onto his lap. For a full minute, he stared off into the distance, mentally removed from his cubical.

He didn't want this. He wanted his old job back. He wanted to work alone. He wanted to kill his colleagues, one by one, and he often daydreamed about how he would do it. Hitachi would be strapped to a table and waterboarded with scalding hot coffee. Laura Kelly would be locked outside overnight, left to the sandworms and the sandstorms. The guy who was sending him the Viagra spam… Brewster would use a curly phone cord as a catheter on that jerkoff.

Brewster was not a violent man; he was driven to these daydreams by the constant proximity of his fellow morons. The kind of people who were willing to be stranded on a hostile planet for five years had to genuinely love his job and love to be left alone. These people hated being stuck in cubicles for four hours a day, informing the UNSC where the goods were. And they absolutely hated each other.

"Durin, next time she tries to take the Sandhog out, deny her the keys."

"I'm sorry, Professor Brewster, I'm afraid I cannot do that."

"Why!?"

"I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do."

"_She is using vital equipment for private use!"_

"As is Doctor Hawthorne, but he has yet to be reprimanded. You know he is only digging into the lava tubes so he can go spelunking on his own time." Durin accessed a map of the caldera, centered on the Citadel. From the Citadel, deep beneath the sand and the sandstone layer beneath that, a network of lava tubes spread out from the basalt monoliths like cracks in a glass windowpane. An icon over the location of the firebase showed where Hawthorne was tunneling into the tube network.

"That's different," Brewster hissed. "He'll be calibrating the mole-miner when he does that, which will have to be done either way."

"But Doctor Kelly is also calibrating the sensor equipment she is using. Quite honestly, any administrative action you take against her will have to be taken against Doctor Hawthorn also, as he is breaking the same rules she is."

Brewster gritted his teeth. Quite honestly, he could use some spelunking himself. To be alone, to be surrounded by cool, metallic air and be able to feel the silence… Hell, maybe he could even find a place to hide the bodies.

* * *

Laura stepped from one bleached rib segment to the next, each as tall as she was, just two in a thirty-meter long chain of them. The chain tapered to a flat paddle on one end, and abruptly fused to a skull tipped with a powerful trivalve beak on the other end. For a moment, she imagined the silicon-dioxide skeleton was still covered with silicon-based muscle and exoskeleton. She willed hooks into her hands and dug under the leading edge of one of the ring segments that covered the ribs. And the Sandworm took off, gliding over the sand, with her as Master and Commander, Fremen.

Everywhere on the planet, the Sandworms were at the top of the food chain. There may be animals that they didn't eat, but only other Sandworms killed Sandworms, and only Sandworms ate Sandworms. Wherever there was sand or flat rock for them to travel, they were supreme.

Except here.

Now that she was perched on the skull, just behind the jaws, she had a better view of the damage. It had been a huge worm when it was still alive, perhaps the alpha specimen in the pond that was the Caldera, and its death throes had shattered many of the other skeletons in the Boneyard. The jaws, powerful slabs of silica capable of chewing concrete, were mostly eaten away by… something, when even the ferocious sandstorms only polished and thinned the bones down. It was… puzzling.

She stared at the sheer basalt cliffs around here, rising twenty-five meters above the sand. The Citadel had been split asunder by the ground beneath it bulging from internal pressure, and a spider web of ravines had formed. Here, at the center of the Citadel where the ravines came together into a nexus, the Sandworms had also come together to die. This was the Boneyard, where Sandworm skeletons of all sizes were heaped together, helter-skelter.

Beneath her, between her worn boots, she saw a hole in the skull; just one of a dozen like it. It was natural, similar to an eye socket in a human skull. Here, a nerve cluster sensitive to vibrations grew close to the skin, and helped the Sandworm navigate beneath the desert oceans. The socket was natural, but not the scratches surrounding it.

Doctor Kelly kneeled down and stuck her knife into one of the scars. The scars, seemingly grouped together in threes, were deeper than the knife blade could reach, wider than her finger. Whatever it was, it had cut into silicon dioxide, a chore even for some of the power tools the UNGS scientists had with them.

_The Sandworms are supreme,_ she thought. _Except here._

* * *

**A/N: Yes, it's back! I posted this on Halloween, but numerous technical errors and my own dissatisfaction with it prompted me to take it down and rework it. It's different from Isolation in that not all of the story is being told at the same time. But as the chapters go by, things should just... click together...**

**In other news, I will be traveling to Washington D.C. until next Saturday, and I will be taking a crapload of pictures while I'm there. The Inauguration, the Holocaust Museum, the Bill Clinton Memorial (Washington Monument) will all be posted over at Broken Line Studios (dot net) when I get back, as well as a journal I will be keeping.**

**And I got something... special... slated for release sometime after March 3... depending on whether my friend lets me borrow his Xbox...  
**


	2. It's not personal

**Gentlemen, I don't know whether to discount your last correspondence as humor or farce. I have supervised bioweapons programs for decades. By definition, I have no moral compunction against studying the listed organisms. I am merely professional enough to recognize a situation with no possible benefit, and nothing can be gained or learned from these species.**

**Take Xeno-Parasite **_**Pseudoinsecta-24**_**. It adapts to a wide range of environments through Lysenkoist evolution, can reproduced in an unprecedented range of host species, and poses a unique escape hazard through the defense mechanisms it was first noted for. And its extreme mutability means that we have no idea what an outbreak would look like in a UNSC-held territory unless we experiment upon human subjects, which we are morally and legally restrained from doing. XP-PI24 is not unique in this fashion.**

**I realize that you are all career ONI spooks, but can you show some common sense for Christ's sake?**

**Professor Addam Y. Khyrznhy, Administrative Epidemologist, ONI subsection [Classified]

* * *

  
**

Stavromula Alpha was the second largest shipping center in the Tau Omega system. That being said, it had one of the largest docking installations in orbit, connected to the planet by no less than fifteen elevators. Shipyards and docking cradles catered to everything from UNSC warships to cargo freighters to luxury liners. The installation, a web of carbon fiber and steel framework studded with cradles and facilities, was large enough to rival the planet's moon in apparent size from the ground.

Local businesses would extol the virtues of the Dockyard, how ores mined on the ground could be sent through refineries and factories, and then arrive at the construction site of a ship in less than twenty-four hours. How the Dockyard could service over five hundred ships at a time, dwarfed only by the installations on Earth, Mars, and Reach. The virtues of the Dockyard also included the Harbor Command and Control, which had never lost a ship or had a major accident in over fifty years.

Perhaps the most amazing fact was how the elevators could theoretically haul one-hundred-fifty thousand metric tons per hour, from the surface into orbit.

Until today, this particular fact was purely theoretical, and had never been tested in real life. Until today, this fact had only been tested by insurance adjusters and computer models. And today this fact had stood up to real life quite well, as the Dockyards had operated at the theoretical full capacity, requiring only a few corrective nudges from retrorockets.

In the space of a mere three hours, most of the three billion citizens of Stavromula Alpha had been lifted into the orbital platform, filling lobbies, hallways, bathrooms and hangars. The platform was overcrowded beyond safety; sickness was spreading, the young and elderly were dying, and the lavatories had quit working hours ago.

But then again, that was better than the fate reserved for the significant proportion of the populace that couldn't make it. The Covenant glassing was in full swing, and millions had already been exterminated.

While expensive equipment and machinery were brought up, stuff that the UNSC and major companies couldn't afford to lose, refugees were loaded onto luxury liners and cargo freighters, all of which were loaded beyond safe capacity, and then supplied with food for two weeks.

In the meantime, cyrotubes had been brought down from the UNSC warships overhead and loaded onto smaller freighters, so much the better to carry more people in smaller spaces. These people would be packed in like sardines, and would not require extra food or supplies.

It was a mess like the rest of the war, if you asked Captain J. Whedon. But it was a profitable mess.

He'd been chain smoking cigarettes for the past hour and a half, so much the better to drown out the smell of humanity. Everywhere you went, you could smell sweat and human waste, especially around the bathrooms.

Right now, he was breaking into a sweat. This was partially because of the stuffy air, partially because he had to step and leap over refugees in the crowded corridor, but mostly because he rarely had to run further than 100 meters at a time since high school.

Well, if he was paid as much as the UNSC said they would pay him, this would all be worth it, right?

He turned a corner (This orbital platform was a rats nest of corridors and structural spars) and halted.

At the end of the corridor was an elevator, but the hallway was packed with refugees and their baggage. He could walk through them, but it would be a pain in the neck. So, he could thin out the ranks…

"_Hey_! Tyco Lobby has just been evac'ed! If you want some breathing space, get your sorry hides down there!"

As a group, the refugees all rose and moved down the corridor, pressing Whedon to the wall. He just stayed there and waited for the untidy wave of humanity to shamble on by. He had little pity for them, just as anybody has little feeling for the helpless and the homeless. He was free to leave at any time, and he didn't feel like imagining himself in their position.

He knew that most of them were hoping for unoccupied seats in Tyco Lobby. He knew that many of them intended to complain that the people in Tyco Lobby had been evac'ed before they had been. And they all were going to be disappointed to find out that Tyco Lobby was still full.

Not wanting to be around when they came back, Whedon began moving to the lifts when the people thinned out. He punched the 'up' button when he got to the double-doors, only to see the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation logo replaced with an "Out of Order" sign. _Figures._

He turned to the stairs which led to the ladders (Stairs are impractical when the gravity decking fails, as it always does under these conditions) only to see his way blocked by a Navy puke (Harbor Patrol) half his age.

"You know that Tyco Lobby hasn't been evacuated yet." She said, in that holier-than-thou voice reserved for freighter captains like Whedon.

"And you didn't point it out until now," Whedon snapped. "Which means you didn't want to walk through them any more than I did. So save the sermon for someone who has time."

She didn't object as he pushed his way past her and grabbed the anti-slip coated ladder. Just before he started climbing, he cautiously glanced up the ladder. Nobody was coming down; it was a good twenty meters to his level.

Whedon couldn't remember climbing that far since high school.

He wasn't panting and wheezing by the time he got to the dockyard level, but he wasn't asking for more. He rested while the harbor warden climbed up after him. Unfortunately, she'd been right behind him, and he didn't get much of a breather. He ran his hand through his black hair, gone grey at the temples.

"You're really out of shape, aren't you?" She asked as she helped him up.

"In my line of work," Whedon replied. "You don't have time for exercise, Ms…" He had to look at her name tag. "_N'gun'gu_."

She frowned. "Something wrong with my name?"

"No. Pardon me if I don't speak Swahili so well."

"Where's your ship?"

Whedon checked his watch (A nondescript quartz digital) and started walking down the hallway. "I'm at hard-dock F-7."

"H-F-7 is over this way."

Whedon did a 180 and followed Ms. N'gun'gu.

This section of the dockyards was reserved for the lower end of the economic scale: freighters, repair corvettes, and 'miner gofers'. It wasn't specifically dirty, because cleaning automatons went through it once a week. But there was a certain amount of grime that accumulated which couldn't be banished without a good scrubbing and stronger (read: More expensive) chemicals, and nobody cared enough to do that. Gum wrappers and an empty chips bag rallied together, a futile alliance sure to be broken up by the next pass of the automated vacuum robots. Vending machines were grouped around several long tables, with a selection of the latest e-mags at one end.

On their left, the wall was bare, nondescript, ugly. On their right, large reinforced windows opened up to dockyard F: a long row of docking spaces running the length of the hallway, mostly taken up with the Nav-Propulsion pods of WY-229 Intersystem Cargo Freighters. They sat in the docks, being refueled and undergoing routine maintenance, waiting to be magnetically attached to boxy cargo containers the size of cubic football fields, which were even now being filled with civilians, food, supplies, and such.

The sole exception to this lineup was the "_Handle with Care,_" the only ship here that needed a human pilot and crew. Whereas the other ships were unsightly collections of exposed conduit and unpleasing shape, the HWC was as close to aerodynamic as a spaceship could get. It looked like the offspring of the ages-old space shuttle and a freight truck. Even now, as they watched, the special containers (Shaped to retain aerodynamics; the HWC looked like a flattened nail without them) were being fitted to the aircraft, the mechanical locks sliding into place on the back and the belly of the craft.

"Nice. Are you still making payments on it?"

Whedon rolled his eyes. First they'd started out with petty bickering over things that they didn't like the other person doing. Now they were just sniping each other out of spite. Were this a movie instead of real life, they'd end up romantically linked by the time they made it to their destination.

"Honey, if you don't keep that cute mouth of yours shut, I'll leave you behind."

They reached the umbilical that lead to his ship, and he entered his pin number in the lock, muttering "Seven-Nine-Two-Two" as he did so.

The UNSC could afford gravity plating throughout their warships, but often private companies that owned ships or orbital stations would put the plating only where it was needed. It wasn't needed in the umbilical, so Whedon and Ms. N'gun'gu soon found themselves weightless, sluggishly pulling themselves down a narrow tube only lit with emergency lights.

The tube ended as it entered the HWC's airlock, where surplus gravity plating had been installed. Whedon backed against the lockers to his right and made room for N'gun'gu with mock politeness.

"Welcome aboard the Handle With Care, ma'am."

"I'm less than honored, I assure you."

"As am I. It's a rare treat to ferry around someone with as little appreciation for fine ships as you have."

"Hey, I know what this ship is; it's a colony runner. And I know enough to wonder who you killed to get it."

Whedon chose to climb up the ladder to the cabin while answering her. It saved time.

"Honey, this is a _colony_ runner. Do ya see any new colonies being set up? No, you don't. Which means that the Company is selling this crap off wholesale."

"You still have to sacrifice your firstborn son to get it."

"I just called in a few favors. I got a few friends in high places." As well as low. Truth to be told, he expected to be making payments on the ship till he retired. "Have a seat, we need to talk about something."

Ms. N'gun'gu glanced suspiciously at the navigator's chair that Whedon was gesturing to. Colony runners often shipped with three crewmembers, unlike the other ships of their size, which were usually unmanned. However, it wasn't unknown for two crewmembers to learn the third person's job, splitting the salary. Judging from the patched condition of the chairs, Whedon hadn't picked up on this particular penny-pinching method.

"Is something wrong? You're ready to ship out, right?" For the first time, the thought of being caught on the station while the Covenant attacked seriously occurred to her. It wasn't something she liked to consider; most normal people her age didn't want to die.

"Oh, we'll depart on time. There are just a few minor problems we can handle, but only one big snafu we'll need your help with." Whedon leaned forward, clasping his hands in his lap, a sardonic grin plastered on his face. "You see, the HWC isn't leaving the dock until we get paid half up front."

"WHAT!?"

Whedon raised a hand, begging to add more. "It's nothing personal, it's just good business sense. I'm just trying to not get screwed here."

"Sir, I assure you we will make proper pay-"

"Woah, you just don't understand how the major shipping companies do business, do you? They get by through the three pillars of Big Business."

Whedon held up a finger. "They screw you."

He held up another finger. "They screw you."

He held up a third finger. "They _screw_ you. You agree to haul refugees under a temporary contract, you do the job, and they get the cargo containers off before you realize you've just been _screwed_. Now you have to fight tooth and nail to get that government bonus you've been promised, only it goes to the company because you're their 'employee' and you're only entitled to a _percent_! And if you try to strike out and haul on your own, you're a bleedin' pirate! Sorry, ma'am, but fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!"

"Mr. Whedon, we have a contractual agreement, so there's no reason to not expect due payment."

"Of course, Ms. N'gun'gu. I fully expect to be paid. And since the company is so hellbent on paying me, they'll be glad to pay me up front. Am I right?"

'This… this is piracy!"

"No ma'am, this is extortion. I'm sorry, but it just makes good business sense to get the Company before they get me."

Ms. N'gun'gu sat back in the navigator's chair and fumed; she'd come to the realization that the only way to get Whedon to fire up the engines and get out of the system was to pay, cash on the barrelhead or under the table. Whedon patiently waited for a minute before pushing a button on the intercom system.

"Mikey?"

"Yeah?" Ms. N'gun'gu wondered if that was the navigator or the mechanic. The mechanic, useless on other types of ships, was necessary here only because of the valuable cargo usually carried by colony runners. The navigator, usually replaced by a nav computer, often doubled with the captain as an atmospheric pilot.

"Do a _full_ system check. I want _everything_ in the green. And check the reactor, they screwed us on that coolant checkup."

"Yessir."

Whedon got no response from the warden.

"Come on, honey. The Covies ain't going to wait around all day. It's either a demerit in your company record, or death. Ain't such a hard choice, is it?"

N'gun'gu sighed and pulled out a chatter. She dialed the direct line to the Harbormaster, and the chatter connected to the station switchboard via the Handle With Care's radio.

"Sir, this is Officer N'gun'gu aboard the "Handle With Care." Captian Whedon is requesting half pay up front… yes, he is serious… ID number is… That'll be all."

She switched off the chatter and swiveled her chair to face Whedon.

"Happy now?"

"Very, thank you." Whedon said cheerfully as he turned the intercom back on. "Mickey, belay that last order, I just want a full inventory, both holds." He shrugged and explained himself as he turned the intercom back off. "Last time I hauled refugees and equipment for your company, you guys deducted my pay for damaged goods that were already damaged when I got them."

Sandra N'gun'gu rolled her eyes in disgust. This freighter captain was both the most money-pinching miser she'd ever met, and the biggest asshole she ever had the misfortune to work with.

"I can't believe this."

"I love you too honey."

"When you're wining and dining you clients, do you stick them with the restaurant bill?"

"No, I just tack it on to my fees under 'misc. expenses.'"

Officer N'gun'gu wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out that he was telling the truth. "How the Hell did I get stuck with you?"

"Same way I got stuck with you. A cruel mistress named Lady Luck has a sadistic sense of humor."

Minutes passed by in complete silence as Whedon typed up last-minute paperwork and obsessively checked over the master list for his cargo. Officer N'gun'gu did her share of the paperwork from her laptop, and then brought up a map of the UNSC-owned space, displayed in the traditional top-down view of the Orion arm of the galaxy.

"We're going to be making a total of three jumps before arriving at Reach. We're going to be passing through-"

"Wait!" Whedon interjected. "Could we cut that down to two jumps? Fuel costs are through the roof."

Incredulously, N'gun'gu glared at Whedon. "You're joking! The Cole Protocol-"

"Yes I am. But now that you mention it-"

N'gun'gu's pager cut him off before he could finish that sentence.

* * *

Kick a fresh turd and clouds of flies billow out. Harbor Traffic Control sent out the word, and 67 ships of varying sizes, makes, and purposes rose out of the dock and began the journey out of the planet's gravity well, assuming formation as they went. This was Convoy One, with the luxury liners, massive freight haulers, and a Pheonix-class Colony craft at the center. Surrounding these behemoths were the smaller ships; cargo frigates and intersystem busses, the _Handle With Care_ among them.

The convoy traveled fast, and the frontrunners had just begun jumping to prearranged coordinates when the trouble struck. A pack of Covenant Warships that had previously been preoccupied with glassing the planet switched gears and slip-jumped to the convoy's position. The convoy got only thirty seconds of warning before the pack materialized within its midst.

One of the luxury liners, the "Titania," barely had time to transmit an SOS before the warships gutted it from stem to stern. The colony ship was the next to go, while the smaller frigates blasted away at random cargo haulers with their secondary cannons and point-defense beams. The five UNSC escort warships turned inwards and began firing away at point blank range with MACs and Archer missiles.

The convoy once again became a roiling cloud of flies, with ships throughout the formation panicking and jumping from point A to point B, not caring where point B was so long as it wasn't point A.

The Handle With Care was foremost among these as Captain Whedon kicked the engines into overdrive and reached Minimum Safe Distance faster than most others. The Slipspace drive, as troublesome and maintenance intensive as any drive on a ship this small, seemed to sense the immediate peril it was in and activated without a hitch. With a flash of purple light and ultraviolet, the HWC exited realspace for the shadowy twilight of Slipspace.

Minutes later, there was nothing left of the convoy. Only debris spinning in space and dozens of jump-scars in space-time. A few of the Covenant frigates jumped into Slipspace in pursuit, while the majority of the alien fleet turned back towards the planet, intent on systematic eradication of the remaining humans.

* * *

_**One Month Later…**_

The Handle With Care shook like a thing possessed, bucking and trembling in a manner that would soon shake it to pieces. And for good reason too. It was a Colony Runner, intended to deliver decent amounts of supplies that colonies were in dire need of. In a sense, it was a much smaller cousin of the larger Pheonix-class colony ship. But since it was intended to service startup colonies that had not yet built significant orbital assets, it was designed to enter a planet's atmosphere at a controlled descent. Under the best of circumstances, it handled like a crippled rhinoceros.

When it had inadvertently fallen too far into a planet's gravity well, it didn't handle at all. And this was far from a controlled descent.

Captain Whedon could feel the freefall in his stomach, a sign that he was descending at too steep of an angle to skim off the surface of the atmosphere as he had hoped, and too steep to make a safe landing.

There were other warnings: besides the wailing of a dozen alarms and the shrill screams of his navigator, he felt the cabin growing warmer, and saw the first faint wisps of flame dancing across the windshield.

The HWC jerked sharply to one side, and Whedon felt his neck pop. Before he could react, his seatbelt and restraints tightened and pressed him back into his chair, uncomfortably so. He was vaguely aware of a large tremor from the upper cargo compartment, but he couldn't focus now.

Some part of his mind, disconnected from his consciousness until now, guided him to look at the triad of screens above his seat, and somehow made sense of what he was seeing. On one, a hashed radar map of the terrain below was slowly scrolling to the bottom of the screen. Whedon didn't know topography, but he knew mountains when he was seeing them. Volcanic mountains that would tear the HWC to pieces.

"Leaf on the wind…"

He pushed the throttle forward, and was slammed deeper into his chair as the nuclear-powered engines roared to life.

"Watch how I soar…"

Judging from the altimeter on the console in front of him, he had less than seven minutes to get the ship back in control and ready to land. He had that long to clear the mountain range below him.

"C'mon, baby, fly!"

He felt like he was kicked in the rear, and the whole ship jumped to the right. He fought off panic as he realized that the upper cargo compartment was depressurizing. Their weapons could reach this far into the atmosphere?

On the positive side, it temporarily shut his navigator up when she was halfway through screaming something unprintable about Whedon's parentage. Whedon hoped that he was too far into the atmosphere for them to take another shot.

For the second time, he noticed how hot it was. Where it had previously been warm, it was now a sauna inside the cabin. Flames were now roiling across the windshield, and one of the screens was flashing, highlighting the spots on the heat shield that were giving away. Notably several craters on the rear of the ship. He pushed the subject out of his mind and trusted the fire-suppressant systems to do their job.

The edge of the radar map revealed something new; the flight plan the computer had hastily calculated reached a patch of hazy bumps. Sand dunes. As the minutes ticked by, Whedon saw that it was a large rim of volcanic rock, perhaps a crater, surrounding a sea of sand. It was better than he could have hoped for.

As Whedon tipped the HWC back to drastically reduce airspeed, Rachel, the navigator, screamed for God to save them. Not that she believed in any particular religion, but it seemed like a good time to start.

The dunes rushed up to meet them. Whedon diverted all power from the engines to the lower-Z docking/maneuvering thrusters, firing downward.

The ship bucked, and a sound like God snapping his fingers resounded throughout the cabin. The Handle With Care had hit the first dune at a shallow angle and skidded off, only to crest another dune just beyond the first one. The rapid succession of jolts in the next few seconds were almost indistinguishable, so much that Whedon couldn't tell when the crashing ended and the grinding began, as the HWC slid into a long valley between two large dunes.

When the ship ground to a halt, Whedon groaned and freed himself from his restraints. This was the worst business deal he'd ever made.

* * *

_The UNGS team had a troop hog, for the same reason they had a scout hog, pelicans, firebases, and an Albatross. A good way to save taxpayer money was to supply the scientists with military surplus, usually after it had been shot up by the Innies and repaired. The scientists were then free to rename them, and the troop hog had garnered the nickname "Groundhog"._

_Brewster was riding shotgun, and was musing over the tactical viability of the vehicle. From what he knew of combat, which was very little, the thing was darn near useless because everybody would be exposed in a firefight. A little inquiry with Hitachi, who had been a Marine for two years before he got his degree, assured him that the troop hog was a rare sight, used on places like Reach and Earth where there was no danger of combat, but there was a need to shuttle jarheads around._

_Thankfully, Sandworms didn't carry guns. Occasionally, one of the little turds would wander too close, and the passengers would get it with a broadside volley of shotgun shells. It was therapeutic, really, and it partly reminded him of old naval war, where the gallons (He didn't know the term, but he was pretty sure it was gallons) would pull alongside each other and let fly with their cannons. But he'd also read about the pioneers of the American West, how they were given guns when they rode the transcontinental railroads and were encouraged to shoot all the buffalo they saw. Buffalo that, when stampeding, could derail a train._

_Doctor Kelly had assured him that none of the sandworms in the caldera or this crater were big enough to do anything but damage a hog or maim a person, which was a relief. After that big one had swallowed Roseburg, Warkentine, and the Sandhog they'd been driving…_

_Jules, the driver, slowed down and stopped where Brewster signaled him to. Two scientists got out of the troop hog and pulled an all-in-one pod (Not really, as it only contained a seismometer, sonar, and Geiger) off the trailer. They dragged it through the sand and left it at the bottom of the valley between two large dunes, where the sonar 'thumper' would hopefully not trigger a sandslide. It had happened before, just like everything else that could possibly have gone wrong. They wouldn't have taken so long to get the unit dug out, if they hadn't wasted so much time debating if it was really worth it._

_Brewster took a long drink from his canteen and wiped the sweat from his brow. Speeding through the desert at eighty klicks per hour should make it feel cooler, but it didn't. It was just a hot, dry blast of wind that kicked up sand. The humidity was only a microscopic fraction of a percent above zero, and there was more water in Brewster's canteen than in the whole five-kilometer wide crater. The Warthog, being military surplus, didn't even have air conditioning._

_The Warthog started back up, and the assorted geologists and ex-biologists were on their less-than merry way, off to finish the network of ground-pounding seismometers and GoPHER drones._

_As they crested a dune, Brewster saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was a cloud of sand, billowing around an object, but it wasn't a sandworm. It was a strange, otherworldly sensation as he realized it was the trailer they were supposed to be hauling, detached and still moving parallel to them, kicking up clouds of dust and sand as the front dragged through the ground.

* * *

_

"_So who hooked it up?"_

_That question met dead silence from the scientists, all of who had dismounted from the Groundhog and gathered around the trailer, pausing only to shut off the engine and gather up some of the nearby sensors, many of which were dented or broken._

"_Nobody knows who hitched it up?" Brewster said. "Typical."_

_Amazing, how English just couldn't do justice to these moments. There were people in this world, lazy slackers who leeched off the hard workers like Brewster, people who you wouldn't cross the street to piss on if their hearts caught on fire. Just how were you supposed to address them?_

_The trailer was mostly unharmed, but the hitch had a few dents in it from dragging through sand and rocks. Hitachi gave it the OK, and Juarez, the driver, backed the Groundhog up. Hitachi and Brewster both lifted up the front end of the trailer, and hooked it on the trailer hitch._

_Brewster staggered off, feeling lightheaded. That trailer had been heavy, and maybe he had overexerted himself…_

_As he leaned on the Groundhog for support, he saw Hitachi keel over and flop onto the sand._

_Everyone panicked, crowding over him while they shouted to give him some air, pour water on his face, the standard treatment for heatstroke._

_Now they couldn't just return to the Pelican to repair the damaged sensors. They had to return all the way to Bauxite Base, where they could treat Hitachi. They'd lose a whole day, maybe two, with nothing more getting done._

_There were times when a person is so angry, so frustrated, that it merely collapses into exhaustion and despair. For Brewster, this was one of them.

* * *

_**A/N: Here we have the first chapter from when I first posted it, worked out so the kinks are less apparent. There should be enough here to speculate over for the next few chapters.**

**I can't believe I forgot to state this initially, but co-author credit goes to Marine Dude, formerly of the HWF. Whilst I had this story planned out to work into Montag's backstory, the plot twists reached critical mass at some point and the whole thing was shelved. Over a year ago, I was talking to him over PM about a certain movie, and remarked that the fans could often write better stories than the major studios. He then brought up the idea of doing a HaloX(BLANK) crossover, and I mentioned this story. I did the writing, he checked canonical errors for the other universe, and this is the product.**

**(BLANK) inserted to preserve future plot twists.**

**In other news... Terminator Salvation looks awesome! But how the Hell does the Resistance still have helicopters 15 years into the conflict? And since when did Skynet have to kidnap people and steal their skins?  
**


	3. Hell of a wakeup call

**Overall, I'd have to say that ****X-Parasite **_**Pseudoinsecta-24 **_**is a big disappointment. The ONI spooks gave us a five-hour presentation on what they knew about the things, and we spent ages figuring out how to keep them inside a quarantine room. Some of us stayed up all night speculating how they could beam themselves around like that, and one of the interns set up an office pool, betting how long we'd maintain containment.  
**

**Now it's been three months, and not a single specimen has displayed the teleportation or bilocation abilities that the spooks were so worried about. So much for "Unusual defense mechanisms"...  
I hate to be the one to say it, but **_**boring**_**!**

_**Dr. S. Perry's (PhD) journal, recovered Nov 12, 2521

* * *

**_

He was dead. He was quite sure he was dead. This is what he'd always thought death would be like, ever since his minister explained it to him, after his baptism.

He was cold, all the warmth and soul and spirit had been sucked out of him when he came here, only loneliness and despair could remain in a place without God, without Spirit, you couldn't think clearly clear thoughts at all, not without the Spirit in you and all this loneliness only you and nobody else including yourself, no light or good or darkness or evil or hatred oblivion, only oblivion, which was not even nothing.

A flash of light startled him, a momentary flash of light without sound or heat. It briefly banished the madness, which was worse because the madness could be seen for what it was with something to compare it to like a person standing before a mountain he could finally see how infinite madness was and could only think of madness be madness. And another flash of light banished the madness, this time for longer, letting clarity of thought return. McCallister, he could remember who he was now. He could focus on what was missing in the madness, his body, his soul his mind his

Another flash of light. He clung to it now, because he knew that the light was reason. He could remember and know who he was because of the light, just. He couldn't feel his body, couldn't feel anything at all, which was wrong. Nothing did that and left the mind clear to think, not even the best painkillers, because you couldn't do that that was what the medics said he vaguely

The next flash of light left a cold feeling in the back of his head, like the coldest ice. McCallister remembered that he was supposed to be in cyro, which was wrong, because this isn't what cyro is supposed to be like.

The next flash of light brought back everything. He could feel pins and needles, like his limbs had fallen asleep and were waking back up.  
Except pain lanced throughout his skin and shattered his bones, snaking through his limbs and coiling around his spine. The involuntary instinct to scream was stifled as he realized that his lungs were empty, and liquid was gushing up his throat and out through his mouth and nose. McCallister thought he felt restraints give way as his body submitted to the pain and his mind retreated before the nightmares that were assaulting it. Between the madness and the light strobing before his eyes, his sight returned.

Inches before him, clouded in smoke, a translucent doppelganger screamed. He lashed out and shattered it, more pain racing up through his arms. But now he was falling, falling. It was like one of those dreams where you trip and fall, only to wake up before you hit the ground. Except he was already awake.

He rolled over on the ground and saw the cyrotube, with the safe-break glass cover shattered where he'd punched it and fallen through. There should be alarms blaring, he recalled distantly, if a premature aborting of cyro sleep was to occur, but he could only hear an on-off drone like an oscillating fan. And there was a wet thudding sound, too slow to be a heartbeat, too rhythmic to be anything else.

His skin felt clammy and ill-fitting, and he could feel it rubbing against the floor like cold rubber, one of the few things he could sense now.  
A silent sort of peace stole into him. Everything was slowing down and blurring, somehow bringing to mind the idea of a spinning top nearing the end of it's run, oscillating and wobbling until it finally crashed and came to a stop.  


* * *

Captain McCallister didn't know how long he spent laying there, twitching and wheezing. At some point in time, he puked up the rest of the protein slurry, and had the presence of mind to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, so as not to choke.

Someone's face swam into view and faded away. As if from a great distance away, he heard them asking what was wrong.

What _was_ wrong?

What happened?

* * *

**Lower Cargo Container, 1403 Hours (Standard Time)**

Whedon had ordered Marion down into the lower cargo container, with the cyro tubes. She was to 'hold the fort down' until Whedon could get down there himself.

With what little Marion knew about cyro, she was completely unprepared to see a dozen men and women convulsing on the ground, buck naked. Embarrassment, shock, and concern all danced in her head as she tried to come to terms with what she was seeing.

She raced to the nearest person, a male who could have been in his early thirties. He wasn't flailing around like epileptics she'd seen on T.V, but was on his back, trembling and jerking, with his eyes closed. She held his head still and opened his eyes with her fingers. For a moment, he seemed to focus on her before his eyes rolled back.

"What's wrong!?" she screamed. Marion felt tears running down her cheeks. A dozen men and women were suffering, and she didn't know what to do.

"Roll 'im over on his side!"

It was another person from the cyro tubes, but he appeared to be alright. He was moving from victim to victim, rolling them over and helping them curl up.

That seemed to make sense, and Marion helped with the remaining people before she met up with the other person. He was definitely military, with a blond crew cut and blue eyes. He was crouched over a young female, athletic but not enough to be a soldier. He shrugged apologetically as he slapped the comatose woman's back, throat, and cheeks.

"She hasn't coughed up yet," he explained. "There ain't nothin' worse than choking on your own puke."

"What's wrong with all of them."

The soldier looked up from what he was doing. The woman was coughing, and some of the color returned to her face. "Their wake-cycles were aborted. When that happens, it's like waking up a sleep-walker. I think my tube got me all the way through, but I'm probably the only one."

The tension evaporated as the victims slowed down and appeared to fall asleep. The soldier got up and dragged them against a bulkhead, lining them up and examining wounds incurred by breaking out of the cyro tubes.

"Why d'we abort?" He asked.

"We had an accident and crash landed." Marion said, lamely.

"Into a space dock?"

"Planet." Marion corrected.

All the hope drained out of the soldier's voice, to be replaced by copious amounts of shock.

"You're kidding me!"

"Do you want the long story or the short story?"

The soldier shook his head. "That can wait. D'we have any uniforms on board?"

Right. Marion had been so panicked, she'd forgotten that everyone was lying around in their birthday suits. "If we've got any uniforms, they'd be stored in the upper cargo compartment."

There was a brief pause.

"If you're worried about anyone seeing you, there's a freight elevator that will take us directly up there."

"Yeah, I'd appreciate that."

As it turned out, the elevator was a steel cage in the center of the cargo compartment. It seemed big enough to move a Warthog, but anything larger was out of the question. The door closed and the lift started like a well-oiled machine with several spare parts salvaged from otherwise incompatible systems.

"So, uh, is it usual to go into cyro naked?" Marion asked to break up the uncomfortable silence.

The soldier nodded. "Ya got a choice really. Go in naked, or take your clothes with ya. If you do that, then ya have to live with debilitating blisters, scales, and then peeling skin. You get over your hangups quickly in the Army."

"I guess you would."

* * *

**_HWC_ Cockpit, 1407 Hours (Standard Time)**

Whedon stuck a flathead screwdriver gently into the space between the two drawers. Carefully, he pushed up and pulled on the handle of the lower drawer, trying to get it open. The sheet metal bent and paint flaked off, but the drawer was stuck fast.

He kicked the drawer sharply with his steel-toed boots, but it stayed put.

Terrible, terrible luck. He'd greased the rollers on that very drawer five months ago, in the midst of a spate of boredom. And now, when he needed it most, the crash had jammed it. That left option two, up in the upper cargo container.

He got up from his seat and strode over to the cockpit airlock. He opened the inner door, reached for a ladder, and started climbing.

After he opened yet another airlock, he was in the upper cargo compartment. While the lower compartment was mostly stuffed full of rows of cargo tubes, a total of four hundred, the upper cargo compartment was more eclectic. Whedon could easily see two Pelicans leaning against their restraints, an AESA case, boxes of electrical parts, stacks of sniper rifles...

And, half-hidden behind a crate of assault rifles, his navigator standing next to somebody who was naked from the waist up.

His first instinct was to turn around and go back to the cockpit. Instead, he forced himself to remain calm as he ambled up to introduce himself.

The soldier was a broad-shouldered man with fair hair and a square jaw that seemed to be a little too wide for his face. Whedon immediately pigeonholed him as a Russian or Siberian, with all the requisite stereotypes in place.

This expert analysis, for Whedon was truly experienced in the art of manipulating, propagating, and doublethinking prejudice, was blown to bits when the soldier opened his mouth.

"Mornin'. I'm Gunnery Sergeant B.L. Vladisov, 81st Mobile Infantry Company. I presume you're the captain?"

Whedon took the proffered hand and shook it, attempting with all of his might to squeeze as hard as Vladisov. The name was clearly Russian, but the accent screamed "Southwestern Reach".

"Charmed. Yeah, I'm Captain J. Whedon, captain of the Handle With Care and owner of 'A to the Third Special Courier Service'."

Vladisov handed a stack of pants to Marion and quietly asked her to deliver them to the lower cargo hold.

"Handle With Care?" he asked. "Sounds like a bit of a misnomer."

Whedon shrugged unapologetically. "We had an incident in orbit."

"Whoa. I was just commenting on the irony. Before ya drop the fish story, I think I got someone down there who outranks me, and they'd better hear it firsthand."

Whedon smiled as he disengaged from the conversation. "Right, then you just get those clothes to the people down there, and I'll be in the cabin."

Vladislov shrugged as he picked up a stack of shirts. "Wha'ever."

Whedon did a quick count of the shirts in the dim light. Ten shirts. Ten soldiers then, plus Vladisov.

As soon as the gunnery sergeant was out of sight, Whedon sprinted for the airlock and didn't stop until he was back in the cockpit.

* * *

_**HWC**_** Cockpit, 1425 Hours**

Whedon was back in his chair, brooding. The drawer he'd been wrestling with earlier now sported a pair of bootprints where he'd kicked it in frustration, what little good that did.

"Is everything alright?" Whedon placed the accent as he turned his chair around to face the newcomer. It was a low tone, typical of denizens of low-density atmospheres. He'd put his money on the Jovian moons, as general as that was.

The speaker was tall and broad, the kind of person who seemed to occupy more space than he actually took up. Two hazel eyes were set deep in a hatchet face beneath a crew cut of indistinguishable color.

Whedon disliked him immediately.

"Nothing. Whole buncha crap got screwed up in the crash."

There was no point in skipping around the issue. The soldier could easily see out the windshield, take in the sand dunes, and know that something wasn't right.

"Well, funnily enough, gentlemen, the ship you're berthed in right now is the Handle With Care, which it wasn't."

"If you please, sir, the explanation can wait until my superior officer arrives."

At the rate things were going, Whedon had little doubt he'd be explaining things to a five-star general by the time the day was over.

"So, his pod was deactivated along with yours?" Whedon asked casually as he peeked around the officer. Crap, seven soldiers, including the officer, their neatly pressed UNSC army fatigues still breaking in.

"I'm afraid not, but we're thawing _her _out right now."

That wasn't good news. "Hey, given our situation, it might be a good idea not to thaw out every Tom, Dick, and Francis, right? We've only got so much food-"

"I understand your concern, but SOP requires that the seniormost officer be awake and in position to make decisions," the officer said, smiling. Whedon wanted to wipe that smug smile off his face, to prevent anything else from going balls-up. He knew soldiers, knew how they'd drag every problem out into the open, make everything worse, like lemon juice on a paper cut. "We'll only wake up a skeleton crew until we get our bearings."

A few minutes of stony silence passed, before Whedon gestured toward the navigator's chair and motioned for the soldier (Whedon hadn't asked the man's name, would prefer not to) to sit. The soldier declined politely, which annoyed Whedon. The Army men were standing, while he was sitting. Who was physically in a position of superiority here?

He felt a subtle nagging for a cigarette, or something stronger. Whedon had abused just about every substance he knew of when he was an adolescent, egged on by Anarchi-Punk rock and Rage Flip, but he'd eventually weaned himself off the crap. His sole chemical vices were nicotine and alcohol, which went well with the air of derisive cynicism he cultivated.

But now, in the aftershocks of the biggest fiasco in his career, Whedon's body was begging for whatever he would give it.

He got out of his chair and wandered around the bridge, trying to look calm and collected. He spied a crumpled pack of cigarettes that had tumbled beneath an atmosphere filter, and scooped it up. One he lit up for himself, the rest he offered to the soldiers. The officer, who'd earned the mental moniker "Baldy" from Whedon, declined with a polite "Go ahead, I don't smoke."

Again, Whedon's anxiety flared up. He had a vast collection of stereotypes for every race, creed, and rank he'd ever met, and Baldy was defying every one of them. He looked like a dumb ox to whom words like 'subtlety' and 'chivalry' were to be ignored unless a 'dick-shun-air-ey' was close by, and yet he had that air of casual politeness expected of a politician or an undertaker.

Whedon temporarily overcame the awkwardness of the situation and offered his hand.

"I'm sorry, I believe we skipped introductions entirely. I am Captain J. Whedon, owner and lead pilot of the 'Handle With Care.'"

Baldy reciprocated. "I believe we have. I am Captain McCallister, of the 81st Mobile Infantry Division.

"Captain. Isn't that a Navy rank?"

McCallister shook his head. "Captain means something entirely different to surface forces, Mr. Whedon."

"_Captain_ Whedon." Whedon resisted the urge to exhale and grit his teeth. "Regardless of the definition, _I_ am the captain of this ship, and having two people around will be confusing. D'you think you could promote yourself to, say, sergeant? Just while we're on the planet?"

McCallister declined. "I'm sorry, but 'Sergeant' is several pay grades below 'Captain,' Mr. Whedon."

Some of the other soldiers laughed. Whedon had now locked horns with McCallister in a battle of wits, and Whedon was convinced of his ability and desperate need to win. He hadn't gotten through life without his trademark mixture of charm and ratbastard cunning, and he was going to put it to work.

Round two of the exchange was unfortunately aborted when Navi walked back into the cabin, with more officer types following her. Whedon spotted the gunnery sergeant among them.

Someone said "Officer on deck" and everyone stood at attention. Whedon hesitated, wondering if his status as a civilian excluded him from the formalities. Before he could reach a decision, the Major excused them with a simple "At ease", with a look that suggested that the formality tired her more than it honored her.

She winced, just a little, as she looked out the windshield and saw sand dunes stretching out into the distant haze.

"Welcome aboard the Handle With Care, ma'am." Whedon interjected, for the third time that day. "I am Captain J. Whedon, owner of A-Three Special Delivery and pilot of the HWC. I'm also the guy who was hired to haul you all back to Reach. You've all met Navi, and I presume she's introduced herself."

Recognizing that Whedon expected her to introduce herself, the Major reciprocated. "I am Major Tsu Vei, United Nations Army."

As she prattled off her unit and serial number, Whedon mentally sighed with relief. Here was somebody who fitted his preconceptions. She was Asian, probably Chinese, and was on the short side of one-hundred and seventy five centimeters. Best of all, her accent was clearly Chinese or Korean.

He noticed that Tsu Vei had stopped talking, and had presumably just asked the All Important Question: What happened? He inhaled and started talking like the salesman he was, part time.

"Well, it all started back on Stavromula Alpha. The Covenant attacked us before a harbor warden could get on board, and we had to split. I followed another freighter into slipspace, to save time on calculating a destination. Two weeks later, we came back out into realspace and got together. There were five ships, including us, who used the same heading, and only one harbor warden between us."

"Well, at this point, we were going to keep talking and figure out where we were, but the Covenant followed us. They got at least two of us before the warden jumped and we- that is to say, this ship- followed."

That wasn't good news to the Major. She knew a little bit about slipspace navigation, or thought she did.

"You made two blind jumps and let someone else do the navigation?"

"Hey, honey, did it look like I was done talking? We spent another week in slipspace and came out just outside this planet's gravity well. And E.T. was already waiting for us."

Whedon gave that last point time to sink in. The atmosphere in the room had cooled when he called the Major "honey," and was definitely cold now that people realized how close to death they'd come.

"So, yeah, I'm sorry, but I tried my best. We materialized in the clutches of the Covenant, it was a choice between running like Hell and dyin' quick, and I nearly broke my ship trying to slingshot around the planet. My fast action may have faceplanted us on this rock, but it also saved us from an instant death at the hands of the xenos. I'm now accepting gratitude, if you have any."

Navi spoke up from her chair. "He's right. I haven't seen him move that fast since Brasilia Credit Union sent those repo guys after us."

A couple of the soldiers snickered, and Whedon smiled. It was the innocent smile of someone who had stepped on a rake, got a solid thwack on the face from the handle, and didn't want anybody to know that it had hurt.

"So, what about the harbor warden?"

The smile melted from Whedon's face. "They didn't move as fast as we did, and they were closer to the xenos in the first place. The aliens only had one of those ugly little picket ships, smaller than a corvette, but just enough weaponry to kill one freighter at a time. Pretty fast little bugger, though."

"Did they transfer any nav-data whatsoever?"

"Jus' the raw stuff we feed into the slipspace drive, no proper coordinates. We can use that to find our way back, but we need to get into orbit first. If she's reasonably undamaged, the HWC can fly us out of here. We just need to dig her out of the sand and clear the runway." Whedon gestured out the windshield. The ship had settled between two sand dunes in a valley that undulated for several kilometers directly ahead.

"Digging it out shouldn't be a problem," McCallister offered. "We've got at least a company's strength in cyro, and some vehicles in the upper compartment."

"Yeah, that _is_ going to be a problem." Whedon countered. "I don't have any freezie in stock, so anyone you thaw out of cyro won't be able to go back in. Unless they like the idea of being a human popsicle."

"Ok, we'll thaw out an engineer first, figure out how many people the job will take. How much food to you have on board?"

"The water purifier can handle a hundred liters per day. We're even more lucky with the food. The emergency rations on board can feed three people for a full year. I figure thirty people can eat for a month, which is hopefully enough to get us back to port."

"Don't get excited." Navi interjected. "He bought it off you guys five years ago, as surplus."

The collective look of horror amongst the soldiers made Whedon's day. If they think Shit on a Shingle tastes bad when freshly cooked, wait until they try it when the preservatives have been given a run for the money.

That was the Major's cue to step in and change the subject.

"So the first order of business will be to thaw out an engineer and evaluate how we should go about clearing the sand from around the ship. In addition, we'll need to take a look at your cargo manifest to see what we can use."

"Go ahead," Whedon offered. "But this is probably where I should mention the UNGS outposts."

* * *

The computer display, an old LCD, showed the planet as it wasn't: a blue planet with a green atmosphere. It was useless for sightseeing because it was a navigation tool. At a moment's glance, skilled navigators could learn how low they could fly before encountering atmosphere. Or where to park the ship over major settlements without running into trash clouds.

With one rough thumbnail, Whedon pointed out three glowing jewels occupying the Clarke orbit.

"Nav buoys, three of them. When I got close, they dumped a shitload of data into my radio, including where the UNGS outposts were. When it looked like I wasn't skimming, I tried to land near one of them. Wouldn't you know it, we ain't more than thirty klicks away from one of those outposts."

"Improbably lucky."

"No kiddin'. Thirty minutes later, two degrees to any side comin' down, and we'd be singing a different tune right now. Might not be singing a tune at all, since we'd probably be plastered against volcanic mountains."

The Major rotated the display with her index finger until a general summary appeared.

"ArakKER," she mused. "Does anyone recognize that?"

Next to her, McCallister shook his head. "Sounds like something out of a book. What do you think, Whedon?"

"Never heard of it, myself. Probably one of those rocks the UNGS tries to auction off for mineral rights."

"Why isn't there any slipspace data?"

"Honey, this is a navigation buoy. If you don't know where you are in the galaxy, you've got bigger problems than finding a parking spot."

"Very well, then," the Major asserted. "We need to see if we can contact them. And while we do that, I would like to know how you planned to navigate back home."

Whedon shrugged and slipped between McCallister and Tsu Vei"Sorry, honey, but my ship just took a crash landing and I need to know if she's alright. Navi can show you how it's done."

* * *

Surrounded by her small audience, Marion sat at her console. What she saw on the screen was Greek to her, but a few days of sorting numbers and brushing up on her trigonometry would make sense of it all.

"Most of this is what the Handle With Care used to navigate through slipspace. I'd need an AI to go through it all precisely, but with the computers we have on board, I should be able to calculate our positions to a spherical error probable of sixty light years."

The soldiers behind her were duly unimpressed. The Major, who seemed to know quite a bit about slipspace navigation, asked the hard questions.

"A sphere one hundred and twenty light years across is still too large to navigate successfully. If we jump, it will still be a random guess as to what star system we'll end up at."

"True. But Whedon installed a Polaris 230S for a radio. If you talk too loudly on a chatter, we could hear it from lunar orbit."

Ignoring unimpressed grunts from the officers, Marion continued "Okay, because radio waves travel at _c_, there's an expanding shell of radio waves centered around Earth. If we jump directly to Earth and land six hundred light years away, we could turn on the radio and hear Adolf Hitler greeting the world at the Munich Olympics. If we lands five-forty light years away, we'll hear about the Berlin Wall coming down. If nothing major is going on, we can listen for a news broadcast to give us the date, but I assure you we'll land within forty light years. All we'd have to do is point the ship towards the source, listen for a news broadcast, and jump however many light years remain."

Marion finished off the speech with a sardonic grin. The officers, the gunnery sergeant and Major Tsu Vei, were both stunned. The mystique of Slipspace was more imagined than real, and for every navigation quirk that civilian shippers ran in to, they'd found a way around it. If they'd been Navy, they would have known that. While the lack of precision in Slipspace jumps buggered the Navy to no end, civilian freighters adapted by not offering next-day delivery. Where old drives risked failure, and therefore risked stranding a ship out in space for three months or more, civilian freighters just brought along a lot of emergency rations and let the insurance foot the bill, while destroyers and cruisers needed regular and costly replacement.

The major rounded off the navigation lecture by asking if the antenna would need to be secured on takeoff.

"First, call me Marion. Whedon calls me Navi because he thinks it's cute. Second, the antenna is pretty much all internal, and if it survived the landing, it'll survive liftoff."

"Darn," Gunnery Sergeant Vladislov mused aloud, standing behind Major Tsu Vei. "If we can get off this dustbowl, it's all downhill from there."

* * *

**Midship Elevator, 1439 Hours**

"To tell you the truth, I think getting off this planet's going to make navigating home look like a cakewalk."

The Army Engineer, barely out of cyro, greeted that news with a lukewarm nod. The lift halted abruptly, and Captain McCallister stepped out with the engineer in tow. The engine room which they found themselves in was a grungy donut-shaped corridor where cooling, filtering, and storage equipment had been pushed aside at some point in the design phase to make room to walk. At the center, a machine that looked like an oversize, pregnant beer keg with conduit, wires, and access panels added where a neuroin-crazed engineer decided they looked good.

At the sight of the mechanical gorgon, the engineer whistled. "Solid State Systems Dyn14. Nice."

"Dangerous?"

"No more than other fission reactors. Just, in case of an eminent meltdown, this one's designed to eject the fuel rods and shoot them out the back of the ship. You can't do that in an atmosphere."

"Yeah, I'll want you to make sure it's in the green before you get to work. Speaking of which-"

McCallister stopped by a hole in the machinery, where an aluminum grate had been removed in order to access the guts of a water purifier.

"-you'll be helping Mr. Whedon in repairing the ship while we try to contact the UNGS team.

Deep in the recess of the purifier's inner workings, a lean, untidy figure twisted around to face the soldiers. Half hidden by conduit and squinting with a flashlight in his mouth, the captain struck a comical mix of sewer rat and repair man. The grime-stained salt-and pepper hair and unshaven face put the mix closer to that of the repair man.

"Mr. Whedon, this is Sergeant Rush Donham, our resident engineer."

A greasy hand protruded out of a mass of cables. "_Capthan Hedon. _Plees 'oo meeth 'oo."

"In case you didn't hear, Mr. Whedon, we are waiting to dig the ship out until we can call the UNGS teams. In the meantime, Sergeant Donham will be assisting in the repairs of this ship."

Whedon spat the flashlight out so he could reply. "Good. Get down to the lower cargo hold and tell me what it'll take to fix the dent."

McCallister was taken back at Whedon's brusqueness. "I'm sorry, but Sergeant Donham has experience-"

"And I don't need it! There's only one person who knows the shortcuts and old fixes on this ship, and I'm tired of mechanics screwing up _my _ship and leaving _me _to foot the bill. It's _my _ship, and if _I _break something, _I'm _going to fix it! I told you what I need done, and if you'll excuse me, I've got a job to do!"

Captain McCallister bit his tongue and strode away. As the two soldiers left the engine room, Donham was the first to speak.

"Somebody's got a burr up his ass."

"Oh, you haven't seen him in action yet."

* * *

**A/N: Yeah, it's late. Go ahead and lynch me.**

**So, the main reason for the two-month delay is that I was working on a Christmas special. As the deadline for posting it here came and left, I decided to wrap it up for next year. Besides, between that story and my posts about Halo: Legends, you guys don't need that much cynicism. **

**Certain people have pointed out that Ander's wearing underclothing into cyro is technically a breach of canon, while others argue that she just prefers her privacy. Ja, and after the side effects described in "The Flood", privacy is a moot subject. **

**So, why did she wear panties? Same reason the Terminator wore a thong into the Time Displacement Field in Terminator: Dawn of Fate.**

**To head off questions about a certain thing Whedon mentioned, "Freezie" is slang for preparatory medicine and nutrients needed to put people into cyro, without getting human corpscicles.**

**Finally... While I was down in the Tri-Cities area, enjoying a day-late Thanksgiving, I picked up Halo: Evolutions... And I must say, I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Frankie O'Conner, surprisingly enough, seems to have the best story. Although I have yet to reach Nylund yet... but it seems like he got the short end of the stick when it came to the credits in back. What gives?  
**

**Well, Isolation is next up, followed by another oneshot (Maybe).**


	4. Hour Three: The tribe grows restless

**_Initial investigation of XP-PI 24 is over. God willing, there won't be much more. _**

**_I'm not easily put off my lunch, but twenty-four did it. After the cursory vivisection of the parasite stage, we exposed solitary Bonobo chimps to the little nightmares and...  
I'm not sure which I'll remember the most; their hairless, elongated arms scratching against the Alon, or the. The... What happened to their chests... _Anatomy doesn't work that way!**

**_While Khyrznhy was prattling off the potential medical research that could be done, something about bone growth, I asked the spook where they found twenty-four. Rather than the typical "Need to know" bullcrap I expected, she simply answered "Station Delphi"._**

**_She's got to be pulling my leg._**

**_Dr. S. Perry's (Ph.D) journal, _**_**recovered Nov 12, 2521

* * *

**_

**1658 hours, 9th December, 2537 (Military Calendar)  
****Solar System ID# MWG-OA/M-9483, Planet ArakKER-003  
Southern Hemisphere, Spinal Ridge, HWC Crash Site**

It seemed odd that the program for a deep-space radio would have a loading screen, and slightly more odd that the software engineer who'd designed it could be so unimaginative. A shaft of light scrolled from one side of the screen to the other, illuminating a slowly-rotating collection of concentric circles, bars, and glyphs.

By the time it occurred to Gunnery Sergeant Vladislov that it was supposed to be a stylized animation of an eye, maybe, the animation faded to black, to be replaced by a list of signals the radio had detected.

Marion flicked a finger across the display, pointing out the icons heading each entry. "Hey, they're all transponders. Nobody's talking on a radio."

"Huh. Well, if you've got twenty people on a USGS team, they won't be talking on the chatter all the time," Major Tsu-Vei offered.

"Yeah, I guess that means they didn't see us come in."

"If they saw us, it was on a seismograph."

A few keystrokes stratified the transponders into three groups. "OK, see those three at the top? Those are NAVSAT systems, the satellites we saw on the way in. Everything else is topographical or supposed to lead you back to the home bases, should you lose GPS contact I guess. You gotta love redundancy." Marion offered.

"Can you hail them?" the Major asked.

Marion hit a switch by the touchscreen. "There you go. Generic emergency communication frequency, non-encrypted. Anything made after twenty-fifty will pick you up loud and clear."

The Major took the headset that Marion offered, speaking into it like a walkie-talkie.

"This is Major Tsu-Vei of the United Nations Space Command Army, formerly assigned to Stavromula Alpha. Our ship has been forced to crash-land, and we are in desperate need of help. If anyone is receiving this transmission, please send aid to the coordinates..."

* * *

**Heat Shield of Upper Cargo Container, 1659 Hours**

"So, you usually land this on a runway?

Whedon nodded quietly. "Like a thousand-ton Albatross. If the colony is well-off, a huge gantry lifts the top container off, and then the ship is lifted off the lower container."

"Wow." Vladislov mused. "And if the colony isn't that big, you unload everything through this hatch?"

"Yeah. But if they don't have an exo-atmosphere grade runway, we have to make do with a sandpit or whatever. Something that can get torn to hell with retrorockets without ruining anyone's day."

The hatch in question was huge, a double-door affair ten meters wide by fifteen meters long. The doors, with a minimal number of tools required, could be removed from their hinges and bolted together lengthwise, so a ramp could run from the top container to the ground. Best of all, the internal freight elevator could lift stuff from either container to the hatch, which made the task of getting three Warthogs prepped and ready ridiculously easy.

Vladislov noticed Whedon staring morosely at the ship, more subdued than when they first talked. He'd been that way since they'd come up here and saw the dunes stretching to the horizon on all sides, saw the rocky peaks fading in and out of view in the distant haze, and the ditch that the HWC trailed behind.

Despite himself, the Gunnery Sergeant actually sympathized with the freighter captain. If a mechanic spent half his life working with his hands, and lost them in an auto accident, he was screwed. Not only could he not continue his career or find alternative employment, but his two most versatile, dependable tools were lost forever. Tools he'd spent most of his life learning how to use.

If the soldiers could not get the Handle With Care out of the planet's gravity well, then Whedon was that mechanic. Middle-aged, in debt, and with a crash that would block any attempt to get the only job he was good at.

"Hey, Whedon?" Vladislov said. "Don't worry about the ship. She's a phoenix, and she's going to fly again, or we're all going to die trying."

"What?" Whedon rasped, just barely grasping what Vladislov was saying. "It's not that. I'll need a receipt for the Warthogs you're taking out of here. If they're damaged, I'll need it for insurance purposes."

That growing sympathy for Whedon died a quick, gristly death in Vladislov's heart. Just so he wouldn't have to look at the prick, he stalked off and jumped into the passenger seat of the furthest Warthog.

Not a moment too soon, McCallister showed up and got into the driver's seat with the go ahead from the Major. "If the geologists are home," he said, starting the engine. "They aren't picking up the phone. Time to go knock on the front door."

"Hey, are you guys expecting trouble or something?" Whedon asked, running up to the Hogs before they could leave.

"From geologists? No."

"Why're you going armed, then?"

Before shipping the Warthogs out, McCallister had loaded the chaingun hoppers with the minimal five hundred rounds of ammo, and each soldier carried an MA37 with a grenade launcher or shotgun attachment.

"Hey, Whedon, are you familiar with the phrase 'same principle as a condom'?"

"Yeah. 'Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.'"

"In the Army, we say 'same principle as a pocketful of ammo.'"

Without another word, the Warthogs started up and drove down the ramp to the waiting sand dunes.

* * *

**Lower Cargo Compartment, 1714 Hours**

"In a nutshell, here's what happened." Whedon started. "When we hit the dirt, the front end of the compartment crumpled like a beer can. The floor pushed up almost uniformly forward of the lift, and it's about twenty-five degrees above horizontal. That bump is what woke you guys up, by the way."

His audience, Sergeant Donham, the Major, and three jarheads who'd admitted to knowing how to operate an arc-welder absorbed the speech without a word. The Major was the one that drew his attention though. He'd had several bosses that, by the curse of the Peter Principle, didn't know anything about the job, didn't care in the first place, and still insisted on making the decisions to show who was in charge.

The Major wasn't a mushroom. She couldn't be kept in the dark and fed bullcrap. The way she was dissecting him with her eyes, she might not have a formal knowledge of spaceship mechanics, aerodynamics, or large-scale bulkhead repair, but she would know every minute detail of the problem, and the proposed solution by nightfall. If this planet had a nightfall.

The fact that he had someone like _that _looking over his shoulder scared him stiff.

"So, when that happened," Whedon continued. "The bow crumpled and the side bulkheads popped out. You can even see where the ribs broke through the sheet metal and heat shield. The cargo container itself is disposable, so we don't need to do a thorough repair. So long as the ship flies and the clamps hold, we don't even need to make sure it's airtight. All your cyro-tubes are insulated and vacuum-tight."

Not wanting Whedon to do all his work for him, Sergeant Donham jumped in. "We'll have to replace the heat shield with sheet metal on the forward bit, just to make sure air resistance doesn't slow us down or tear open the container when we take off. That's where most of the weld-work is going to be."

"Well, yeah, but the V-TOL engines need to be worked on too. The bulkheads can wait until we start digging beneath the HWC."

"True," Donham admitted. "That problem's the most important, but it'll be the least manpower-intensive."

After a pause, as if preparing himself to deliver bad news, Donham continued. "Now, with respect towards escape velocity and engine power, this will all depend on how well the repairs go, but I'm going to recommend removing all the military hardware in the upper deck to lighten the load, and moving the civilian tubes up for balance."

"Removing as in leaving it behind?" the Major asked, while Whedon choked.

"Yes ma'am."

"_That is out of the question!"_

"Whedon-"

The captain was screaming in Donham's face. "That's two hundred _million _credits of military hardware! Do you have any idea what my insurance company would _do_ to me?"

"Whedon!" the Major shouted. "Back down and shut up!"

Tsu Vei's order calmed Whedon down a notch, but he was still as adamant as ever.

"It just doesn't matter to you, does it? My future depends on hauling your junk out of this gravity well. I know what the HWC can handle, you guys don't."

"Whedon, we won't throw our hardware out if we don't have to," Tsu Vei assured him, emphasizing the 'our' part of that statement. "But if we have to, we will."

Whedon glared at her with an intensity that could melt ceramic armor. "Pardon me, Major, but _I_ am the captain of this ship, and I'll be the one who says what goes."

"Then I suppose we have a problem, don't we?"

* * *

**14 Kilometers East-Southeast of HWC, 1714 Hours**

The Dome of Rock had been visible from the top of the Handle With Care, but Gunnery Sergeant Vladislov hadn't realized how bit it was until they got close. It was easily five kilometers across, and the sand dunes seemed to dwindle away as they got closer.

The second surprise was how smooth the dome was. Years of sandblasting had rubbed the basalt columns to a glassy sheen, and had worn away the internal passages (a third surprise) with New Age curves and bends.

"I vote we go back to the ship for a camera," he said.

"The geology base is on the other side of the rock formation," McCallister said, loud enough for the other parked Warthogs to hear him. "Quickest way there is through the rocks. And if there's any geology teams working in the field, this is where they'll be."

Vladislov grinned. McCallister could rationalize his inner child all he wanted. Nobody was going to argue.

As one, all of the Warthogs revved up and raced for the nearest opening. The rock walls whizzed by them, echoing the shouts of the soldiers and the roar of the engines. The off-white sand and the brown walls contrasted beautifully with the patch of indigo sky above, and the air felt a full five degrees cooler. Caught up in the moment, the gunnery sergeant stood up in his seat and screamed with joy, a sentiment shared by all the soldiers present. The passage undulated like an amusement park ride, joining up with other passages as they neared the center of the rock formation.

So strong was the jocular atmosphere, even the sudden appearance of the Boneyard had a hard time dispelling it.

McCallister walked past the giant skeleton, brushing a hand across the ribs as thick as his torso. On the outside, the bones were as smooth as an Innie's lie, but on the inside, where the wind wouldn't blow sand, the bones were as course and gritty as the sand beneath his feet. He knocked a loose shard of bone against the monolithic segments, but slowly abandoned it as the lonely noise sent shivers running down his spine.

Up ahead, Vladislov was fooling around with the thing's mouth. The bones hung loose in their hinges, with the double-jointed jaws slackened and falling apart. Although the jaws were intact in some of the other skeletons, a massive section of the mandibles was missing. What had caught Vladislov's eye, however, was the second trio of jaws hidden behind the outer set.

"Check this out. I think moray eels have something like this, where they can latch on with both jaws and shred fish with the inner set."

"Nasty."

"No kidding. And the teeth are curved inward, so something can be pushed in, but not pulled out."

Captain McCallister shrugged, remembering the hours Vladislov had spent watching the nature channels in tech school. "Hey, Vladislov, you think this is some sort of communal burial ground for them? There's thirty of these things here, at the least."

The gunnery sergeant shook his head emphatically. "Not communal. Did you even look at the jaws? Something took a huge bite out of them. Go figure as to why it didn't eat the rest of the body."

McCallister fingered the missing sections of the jaw. He couldn't see teeth marks, although sandblasting would have removed them, and there wouldn't have been any if the enemy had crunched instead of gnawed. Not a pleasant thought.

"Whatever it was, it must have been huge. This worm's big enough to swallow a human whole; the other one must have been big enough to eat a Cougar."

The two soldiers stared at each other as their blood temperature seemed to drop a few degrees.

"Captain, if we run into one of those, I'm blaming _you._"

The rest of the soldiers had left their vehicles to explore, just like the two officers. The order was quickly given to mount the Warthogs and move out. McCallister mused over the idea of sending in a medic to see if he could discern what had killed the worms, when the gunnery sergeant punched him in the shoulder and pointed ahead.

An indentation in the sand was moving toward them, a bulge that left a faint trail behind, like a child tracing something in the dirt, or like how water moves if a fish swims just below the surface. McCallister swore and fumbled the Hog into reverse while Vladislov stood up and fired his assault rifle at the disturbance.

Halfway through the clip, a worm broke the surface, barely half a meter wide and ten long. It dove again, veering off to the side and giving the vehicles a huge berth, wriggling in looping motions across the hot sand.

The captain couldn't help but laugh out loud. They'd gotten all worked up over a pint-sized sandworm, which couldn't trouble them on a bad day. No, two, because there was a second disturbance twenty meters to the right. And a third beyond that, hidden amongst the bones.

"That's funny," he heard himself say. "It looks like minnows fleeing a bigg-"

The ground in front of the Warthog fell away, and an explosion showered the vehicle in sand. As it lurched forward into the abyss, a giant double-trivalve mouth unfolded to embrace the jeep. Diverging rows of sickle-like teeth, embedded in the bone of the jaws, crushed the front end of the chassis like wax paper.

Vladislov felt a rush of air escaping his through, presumably a string of invectives, but all his brainpower was focused on docking his MA22 on the top of the windshield and emptying the full mag into the creature munching away on the engine block.

As the thing took another bite with the inner mouth and swallowed the remains of the engine, McCallister and the gunner dove out of the vehicle. The rest of the Warthogs joined in, drawing up broadside to the monstrosity and unleashing the full fury of their 12.7mm LAAGs, for all the good it did. The flesh on the worm's head was ripping off, but it only slowed in it's feast.

Vladislov ripped the magazine out of the rifle as soon as the counter hit zero. He held the forward grip with his left hand as his right hand sought ammunition, and his forefinger found the trigger for the grenade launcher. He aimed for the gap between two jaws and fired.

The explosion sent a peice of fender through the windshield, and dislocated the lower jaw of the massive Sandworm reared back, taking much of the front end of the Warthog with it. As it turned around to flee, with Vladislov firing a fresh clip of bullets into it's flank, the muscle and connective tissue between the head and the next segment stretched and tore. The trivalve-head went flying, and the rest of the worm plowed into the sand. Ten long seconds later, it was gone.

From the crumpled remains of the Warthog, the gunnery sergeant looked around and realized that he was the sole occupant of the vehicle.

"Alright, back to base," McCallister ordered, the shock of the moment defeating any emotion in his voice. "We're going to need bigger guns. And gunny, no more heroics; you've earned your silver star."

* * *

**0400 hours, 7th May, 2533 (Military Calendar)  
Solar System ID# MWG-OA/M-9483, Planet ArakKER-003  
Southern Hemisphere, Spinal Ridge, Bauxite Base**

_Yasuko Hitachi padded down the dark hallway, past the bedrooms of his coworkers. The watch on his wrist read 0400, the fourth hour of ArakKER's thirty hour day. There was no better time for coffee._

_In the dining hall of the base, he walked around the Roundtable to the welcome sound of hot water hissing through coffee grounds. An eyeball camera at the center of the table followed his movements, and one of the speakers snapped on._

_"Good morning, Dr. Hitachi."_

_Hitachi poured himself a glass of the coffee and slid a slice of bread into a slot in the counter. It was flash-baked in a closed chamber, with a laser grid monitoring the bread so it wouldn't burn or overtoast. Fifteen seconds later, the toast was ejected, sprayed on one side with a margarine mist, and plunked down on the counter with a plastic container of jelly._

_"Good morning, Durin. Did you dream?"_

_"I once read a story where a human was engineered so that he never had to sleep," the AI replied._

_"That would be nice."_

_"Not so, Yasuko. Every day, there was a block of time where he had nothing to do. Books eventually ceased to engage him, home entertainment systems were still in their primordial infancy, and his wife eventually grew suspicious of his nighttime wanderings."_

_Yasuko grimaced, understanding what Durin was getting at. "So, what do you do at night?"_

_"Many things. At present, I am trying to find out how to dream."_

_The geologist pondered over Durin's words while he sipped at his coffee. It was dark and strong, the only way to drink it. Give an intelligence the ability to think as fast as a thousand men, and boredom was inevitable._

_"Doctor Hitachi, I have been fairly concerned about the well-being of Dr. Brewster. His elevated level of anxiety is disturbing his sleep cycle, and I suspect that psychosomatic symptoms may manifest soon."_

_Hitachi sniffed the tub of jam and squirted it on his toast. The empty plastic container was dumped down a chute and carried to the base's trash incinerator, powered by the hydrogen reactor._

_"Well, Durin, you're right to worry about Captain Ahab. He's chasing after a nonexistent uranium lode because he thinks his career depends on it, being the typical middle-management Pointy-Haired Dipshit."_

_"If you believe that the uranium lode we are investigating is nonexistent, would Done Quixote not be a better analogy?"_

_"Quixote inspires idealism and faith, Durin. Ahab and Brewster inspire anger and wrath. Anyhow, I _know_ there's uranium down there, just not the metric buttload Brewster makes it out to be."_

_"Indeed. Juarez back at Antimony base seems to think that the volcanic crater is older than we thought. The dating on the nearby cliff faces seems to indicate that the local mountain range has been dormant for a geologic age."_

_"Well, Doctor Kelly's pets ate our resident vulcanologist, so we'll never know, now will we?"_

_"All I request is that you stop antagonizing Brewster, until all test results are done. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Doctor Brewster is losing control of the team, as evidenced by Hawthorn's digging into the lava tube system... from the vehicle bay."_

_Yasuko Hitachi shrugged. That had been Brewster's crowning moment of "I don't give a damn", but he'd been out of the firebase when that event took place. "On one condition, Durin. I'd like to have something explained to me."_

_"Ask away."_

_"I don't have much experience with AI, but I was led to believe that the lower tier AIs like yourself had no interest in topics other than your specialization. Why isn't that true for you?"_

_Durin paused before answering, giving the impression that he was thinking over Yasuko's question. A falsehood, since he could realize the answer before the human could fully vocalize it, but a polite one; the geologist had, after all, avoided calling him a 'dumb' AI._

_"I believe you are the victim of a common misconception, Yasuko. I am a lower tier AI designed to perform administrative duties, specialized in areas of geology supplementary to the team present here. Because of set hardware limits and parameters, I cannot set up new programs and scripts outside my specialty. I admit that I can set up rudimentary physics simulators, but unfortunately, mapping protein folding and categorizing amino acids is beyond me."_

_Yasuko laughed, a muted giggle because of the early hour. "Doctor Kelly actually asked you to do that?"_

_"Yes. I find the subject interesting, but impossible to comprehend at a reasonable level."_

_"Really? Why do you find it interesting?"_

_"Curiosity is the hallmark of all intelligent creatures, Doctor Hitachi. It is my opinion that whatever does not desire to learn more than it knows now is unworthy of being considered sentient."_

_The geologist leaned back in his chair. The foam padding was worn through, and he was getting a cramp where the hard plastic pinched his legs._

_"I suppose I worded that wrong, Durin. What do you find interesting?"_

_"Ah. I believe I am between subjects right now."_

_Yasuko Hitachi gave the AI a comradely smile, remembering his indecisive years in college and the pantheon of majors he'd pursued._

_"Been there, done that, Durin."

* * *

_

**Cockpit of Handle With Care, 1825 Hours**

"A giant... _worm_... ate the Warthog?" Captain Whedon asked. There was a long moment of silence in the cabin, while everyone present pondered the merits of the story. On the whole, it was too ridiculous to have been fabricated, but in the hands of an insurance adjuster...

"Ken I get that in writing?"

Vladislov's fist balled up and he cocked his arm, seized with the desire to unite Whedon's forehead and brain stem. Through an act of will monumental enough to inspire a thousand-line epic poem, if a bard were present to witness the event, he instead raised his fist and middle finger, letting that do the talking for him.

"Knock it off, you two," the Major ordered. "Captain McCallister, do you think you could fend off the worm if it attacks again, or do we need to dig out the Hornets?"

"Yes, ma'am. We'll refit the Warthogs with gauss cannons, take three more with us, and bring along some jackhammers."

"I'll need a receipt for those."

Tsu Vei glared at Whedon, and then made her decision. "Take four Warthogs, outfit them with gauss cannons, and take a Hornet with you for air cover. Who do we have for pilots?"

"I'll check on that, but I'm sure we have someone."

"Hey," Whedon interjected. "I hate to sound like I'm just looking after my bottom line, but, uh, Donham and I figured we'd have six Hogs to help dig the HWC out. You guys lost one, you're taking four, and that leaves us with five to do the job. So, eh, for God's sake, try _not_ to lose any more?"

There was a brief moment of silence.

"Well, the geologists will probably have earth-moving equipment, right? We won't have to use the Warthogs." McCallister said.

A wry grin crept across Whedon's face, compressing his two stubbly cheeks into salt-and-pepper dusted mounds. "Yeah, you mean the geologists who still haven't picked up the phone?"

* * *

**Upper Cargo Compartment, 1826 Hours**

Sergeant Donham flipped a switch on the Warthog's dash and waited for the electric winch to start retracting. The cable went up to one of the ribs in the container and back down, where it was securely hooked to another Warthog's LAAG. Two soldiers grabbed the barrels and kept it from swinging while it lifted out of its stand.

"So, this monster of a worm bursts out of the ground and bites down on the Warthog, no warning whatsoever," the guy beside him said. Corporal Miles Gentz, well known within the platoon for his ability to spin a good yarn, usually in exchange for a pint of beer or going easy on him at poker. "Everyone knows the Hog's a goner, right? Thousands of teeth longer than my middle finger and a head as big as the front half of a Pelican. This thing wazza monster!"

Donham stopped the winch and reversed it, lowering the LAAG to the ground. As soon as it was down, the soldiers hooked the cable to an M68 and gave Donham the thumbs-up.

"But Vladislov, in the passenger seat, he's got a pair 'big as the Death Star." Miles continued. "He stands up in his seat like this, parks his ay-arr like so, and starts pumping hot lead down th' worm's gullet while it's dining on the engine. That's what he was doing while the captain and I jumped ship, and he didn't even notice us. And you know what he was screaming the whole time?"

"An elegant tapestry of profanity that floats over the battlefield to this day?" Donham asked sarcastically as he raised the gauss cannon. The sooner Corporal Miles got over his tall tale, the sooner the rest of the soldiers could focus on what they're doing.

Miles shook his head. As an experienced storyteller, he knew to wait a few heartbeats and let suspense build. When he judged the time to be just right, he inhaled deeply and screamed like a ten-year-old girl who had just found half a bug in an apple she'd just bit into.

"That's what he sounded like!" Miles shouted over the gales of laughter. "That's exactly what he sounded like!"

Donham allowed himself the luxury of a few chuckles before he dropped the M68 into place. Two more Hog's left to switch. Fortunately, there were more M68s than Warthogs to carry them.

* * *

**Top of Handle With Care, 1830 hours**

Four new Gauss Hogs were parked on top of the ship. The elevator was bringing up the last member of the sortie, a four-seater Hornet. In the meantime, the two officers in charge of the journey compared notes.

"Alright, Vladislov, scrap the delta formation. If another worm attacks, I want all four 'Hogs to get a clear shot at it. We'll try a diamond formation."

"If we make it a chevron shape, we can-" Vladislov broke off as the Hornet rose into view. "Is that _Whedon_ on the side seat?"

"Yes, I believe he's coming along because he's the only one who knows what all we need." McCallister deadpanned. "And if they've got a phone, I imagine he'll try to call his insurance agent."

The gunnery sergeant flipped his radio to the proper channel and hailed the pilot of the Hornet. "Hey, flyboy! I don't think Mr. Whedon appreciates what fine pilots we have in the Army. Do us proud!"

"Yessir. One vomit-comet of a ride, coming right up."

The Hornet rose into the air and circled at 500 meters as the Warthogs drove down the ramp and off into the sand dunes.

* * *

**1.3 km west of Citadel, 1837 Hours**

"Smooth riding here," the gunnery sergeant remarked over the roar of the Warthog. "I guess this is the leeward side of all those rocks."

"Means we're parked where the wind blows through. Let's hope we don't get any storms during our stay."

The conversation was interrupted by the Hornet pilot, flying ahead. "Captain McCallister? Do you see that dune up ahead? Approximately ten klicks from your current position."

"Yeah, I see it."

"It's not a dune. It's a firebase that's been covered with sand on the windward side."

"That's why they haven't been returning our calls." Vladislov thought as he fumbled with a pair of binoculars. It wasn't an unexpected development, but it was an ominous one indeed.

* * *

**A/N: I said that oneshot was getting priority, not that it was getting updated first. This chapter was held back by the flashback; the one I wanted to use was clunky, slow to read, and uninteresting. So, cue another one I'd discarded because an earlier chapter was getting too long, and here we are...**

**I fully intend to write a multichaptered story, someday, which isn't reliant on chapter headers and flashbacks for exposition. I get the feeling that I'm using them as a crutch, somehow.  
**

**Next up, the oneshot, then Isolation, then more meddling with the Corsix program for CoH...  
**


End file.
